


End of the Road

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Death, Drabble, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Multi, Oneshot, Other, Pain, Survival, Very Mild Gore, dying, dying Erwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 15:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5210984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the people he loves by his side, Erwin finds some beauty in the solace of death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Road

**Author's Note:**

> For ErurihanWeek 2015

It is only now in his dizzy haze, his head lolling back to force him to look up, that Erwin learns to appreciate the beauty of the sky above him.

He wheezes out a soft laugh, one corner of his mouth twitching into the inkling of a smile as he stares out into its vast open infinity. It seems as though the sky has come to bless him today, clear but for the swirls of white like doilies trimming it at the horizons. The white fuzziness at the edges of his vision blur the expanse, seeming to fluff the few puffs of clouds that float lazily and happily past, blend the shades and shadows of blue into a gradient of calming waves that almost claim him with each of his forced strides. A flock of geese zoom past, a black and broken V that breaks the stillness. Their squawks are quiet, distant, carried by the air that caresses his sticky face – he would reach up to feel what was making it tacky if he had the energy – and it only adds to its infinite peace, so in contrast to the ringing in his ears, the panting of desperate bodies pressed beside him.

The sky seems to radiate a calm that he never knew he could have wanted, but in the chaos craves more than anything he ever has in his life, enough that he would force himself to fly up to it. He almost does, for nothing more than a moment, his foot flying from under him, feeling himself move freely through the air. But he does not go upwards; his body starts to fall like a dead weight, blue giving way to the muddy green of sick, unhealthy pastures. He has seen them before, watched bodies fall to them like his own does now, but seeing it now fills him with a lonely kind of sadness. 

He does not hit the ground; something shoots out to grab him, strong and warm across his chest. He strikes it with a groan of pain, what little breath he has whooshing out of his lungs. He lets himself hang limply, hair falling into his face as his chin hits his chest, but his support does not allow him to lie there. It lifts him up, hefts him with a grinding grunt, and he tumbles backwards into something slender and strong, letting his head fall back again. He is happy as long as he can look at the sky. 

“Come on,” the grunt breaks off, the words heavy, breaking with the strain of a heavy burden and a perseverance born of futility and sorrow. It is loud in his ear; it drowns out the cries of the birds beckoning him above, almost rises above the rhythmic rumbling of the ground beneath him, like the footsteps of an earthquake. Almost.

“Come on, Erwin,” it sounds again. “You’re not leaving us here.” It begins to grow louder in pitch in its desperation. He knows that voice, but in his daze can barely place it. But he knows that it is wrong, too sorrowful for something he insinuates with a deep instinct should be boisterous and enthused. Where is its joy?

There is a nagging force in his back, wrapping around his torso. He is not moving of his own volition, rather only being propped up like a puppet hanging by tangled strings. He fights it, but it wins over, edging him forward one shaking and pathetic step at a time. His feet do not hold him up, muscles screaming for him to stop, giving out beneath him as he lurches forward achingly. 

He tries to plead with them, the word ‘please’ stuttering on his trembling lips, but it only sputters out in a ragged cough that leaves him choking and gasping for breath, the taste of warm, liquid metal flooding his mouth. He whines out a weak groan, his head no longer able to hold itself up, lolling to the side.

It comes to rest at his right, his whole body slowly following it. He looks down, trying to see the leverage in which his head has laid itself. His eyes twitch down; brown, knotted hair lies matted beneath his cheek, his eyes following the length of a curved nose and broken goggles. Slowly, as if of a tiringly worked through revelation, he matches the previous voice to this head by its side, and feels a soft warmth flood him. 

Even slower is his realization of the blood staining them, a red shirt now soaked ruby, black and sticky in their hair. There is no wound on them, but his confused mind concludes that there is no way that much blood could come from him, it had to be from a titan, even with gruesome hands and massive molars looming over him, and he cannot tell if those rotting teeth bare itself to him now or if it is just an apparition of a past nightmare. 

“Come on, Erwin,” Hange says again. They push him forward again. He cannot see the stream of tears down their face through his own. “You can get through this, you’ve gotten through a measly titan bite before, you can do it again!”

Even as gaping maws flood his vision and searing pain blooms through him, he cannot remember a bite, cannot understand how the curving line of agony across him can ever be associated with that kind of atrocity. He cannot remember anything, in fact, cannot remember where he is, what he is doing, his mind grinding through fading thoughts to fall to conclusions that only confuse him further. He murmurs, whining slightly as he almost falls forward again with his next step, looking back up to the sky. It is a beautiful sky.

With the next step, he leans to the other side, and he can almost feel Hange’s arms scrambling to grab him as he leans away from them. There is another pillar there, one he leans against graciously, thankful for the respite as his weight is further lifted from his weary bones. He almost wants to close his eyes against the warm summer sun, even as he is soaked with sweat – there is sweat, along his brow, over his chest and stomach, but there can’t be so much of it, so warm and sticky that he feels it almost drip off him in a torrent, and something in his blurry mind nags at him frightfully of something having gone horribly wrong.

He tries to voice his fear, overwhelming him; he is lost in his mind, in his surroundings, unable to muster his usual façade to stifle his panic. It comes out as nothing more than a whining cough, something bubbling and erupting from his throat as he grapples with the pillar beside him, feeling muscle and metal and fabric as if trying to tear some aid or sympathy from it. Shockingly, it gives into his wish without him having to ask.

“Fuck,” it curses under a heavy breath; it carries with it an undercurrent of dread, yet to hear it gives Erwin a strange sense of easiness, as if the fact that he is in the company of others he trusts, bordering and supporting him on all sides, can be the biggest comfort he has ever received. It probably is.

“God damn it,” it sounds again, weak but determined. “Don’t fucking do this to us.” In his daze, Erwin can almost match that gravelly, severe voice with Levi’s familiar stocky stature and raven hair; almost is not enough, and instead he only gives into the strange yet reassuring knowledge that it can be trusted as it always had.

“Come on,” both voices encourage him, growing more frantic in the time that Erwin grows more weak. He wants to listen to them, wants to fight, but he has done so for so long that now he wonders if it is better to give in.

He lurches forward one final time before he decides it is. He stumbles, feels the muscles in his legs tense painfully as they twist over uneven ground, marred by the marks of battle. The two voices call his name, urging him to rise, but even as an infinite guilt pools in his belly, he refuses them – it is not the first time he has done so, and he has felt his heart wrench in the same way he undoubtedly made theirs in his unwanted yet elective drive for isolation, had felt torn as painful as skin from bone with every instance he had pushed himself away, only allowing for fleeting moments of intimacy that he knew he could not give or take yet desired, and that the other two deserved infinitely more of. He hopes he can be forgiven for that, prays to the sky in repentance – he does not believe in any god that could have abandoned them in the world like this. 

But for him to refuse this easy task of them, to fight on and lead like he always has, is a treason that breaks a sob from his throat.

He takes in the field around him, in stark contrast to the welcoming and open sky that seemed so free of trouble; it shows him a grim reality, bodies littering the ground like stray rubble. Figures loom in the distance, humanlike but not enough to be familiar, uncanny and vulgar that it makes his stomachs turn. 

It is not a new scene to him. He has grown accustomed to the gore and cruelty of the battlefield. He is only calmly perplexed at the notion that he will now be the one decorating it, a simple body laying forgotten, passed over in the aftermath, rather than an observer. 

He does not have long until he succumbs to it. Drearily, he lifts his head, feels the warmth of the sun bathe his face and his tears running down his temple. He opens his mouth, sputtering through the blood that pools in it.

“I’m exhausted.” It takes all of his breath to simply wheeze out the words, leaving him slumped between them. He brushes past them, ever so slowly falling to the ground, even as they try to hold him up in their futility.

“Stop it,” Levi spits, and Erwin wants to laugh; how in the world can he stop himself from dying? The words are low and menacing, meant to be threatening, but Erwin can hear them trembling through their thickness. It breaks him to hear that raw emotion, coming from a voice so stoic and severe, and he wonders in awe and heartache just how much he must have meant to him. 

By his other side there is a sob, and it is a striking blow; not in its emotion, but in the absence of rowdy optimism. He would have liked to see Hange smile, hear them ramble one more time. Instead he only jerks his head away, unwilling to see the tears he has caused in these final moments, and no doubt caused many times before.

“I’m exhausted,” Erwin repeats, hoping it can be an acceptable explanation – as if losing life can be explained, or needed to be in order to be under tolerable circumstance. 

The words bounce in his head. He is so tired, and after a lifetime of unending work he doesn’t think he can accept this repose as graciously as he ever could. He is tired. He needs rest.

“You can’t do this.” It is Hange who cries, their voice grating through a raw throat, a whimper carried on a scream. Despite his resistance, the two of them still push him on, even as his boots drag in the mud. “You’ve worked so hard for this. You can’t die before we’ve seen freedom, not when we’re so close, not now.

“Please,” they beg, “just hang on a little longer. Just a little more.”

And he does, if only for the few moments he can muster – it is not many, his body growing heavy and listless, the white blur of his vision giving way to endless black and nothingness. It will not last him until he is back behind the walls and can be cared for, his few remaining breaths destined to be heaved out into a world where humanity is just barely scratching at the surface of freedom. Yet the knowledge that he has brought it so close to it, led a movement to pursue and live out that freedom is enough to flood him with a peace he is glad he can take with him to the grave.

He looks up to the sky; surely it looks just the same now as it would over the horizon. He may not see the world outside their walls, but he is willing to have the beauty of the sky be good enough.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” Sorry for his cruelty, for his rejection; for his need to shed off his own human need to be a leader; for his sacrifice of their broken hearts for what he thought would be the greater good. Sorry for leaving them to pick up after his mess, to lead in his stead even as it all comes to a close. Sorry for not saying he loved them. Sorry for not loving them like he should have. 

“Don’t.” He cannot tell who utters the word; everything is blending into one, a conglomerate of sensations and emotion, not grabbing the detail of intonation and pitch but rather the sadness that drips from it, filling him up.

“Thank you,” he says. He looks up, his whole world turning as blue as the sky as darkness claims him. “For everything.”

And then he is falling; he feels his stomach flip and arms scrambling to grab him, the air stinging his face and wicking away his tears, and he is vaguely aware of his knees striking ground and screams of desperation calling him back in anguish but he cannot follow them, and he is falling, falling to the ground and flying, flying up up up into the sky and the darkness that mingles together and embraces him like and old friend, laying him to rest like a mother caring for her child.

And then nothing.


End file.
